


evening is slowing

by writing_way_too_much



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Making Out, Mild Sexual Content, Underage Drinking, let me capitalize on the Not Heterosexual Moments gansey has sometimes, set after the dream thieves and before bllb, these boys are all just so tangled up in each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:48:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26956102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writing_way_too_much/pseuds/writing_way_too_much
Summary: Ronan has a bottle of very old and very expensive wine that was not obtained through dream or legal methods, and he sits on the floor next to his bed while Chainsaw tries to eat the sunglasses. He hasn’t taken a drink of the wine yet.“Can I come in?”Ronan’s door isn’t closed. Gansey takes up less of the doorway than he usually does. “Yeah.”
Relationships: Richard Gansey III/Ronan Lynch
Comments: 10
Kudos: 63





	evening is slowing

**Author's Note:**

> hello this is my first trc fic :)
> 
> i love pynch so so much but i also love ronan and gansey's relationship and i just had the idea for this fic okay
> 
> this is set like a week after the ending of the dream thieves. let's pretend that gansey and blue either didn't have a moment or it was watered down or gansey is just bi and seventeen. that's the whole point of fanfiction, pretending
> 
> warnings for underage drinking, mentions of death, mentions of kavinsky and all his shit, some mild allusions to internalized homophobia
> 
> title from "dinner and diatribes" by hozier
> 
> i do not own these characters, they are not mine, i only own the plot

The air conditioning breaks in Monmouth Manufacturing.

Normally Ronan would go kick the unit, or have Gansey call Adam to come and poke around at the mechanics of it. But it’s only been a week since the Fourth, since Kavinsky, since Adam put stones by a lake and repaired the ley line. Ronan’s still reeling from the fire dragon. A pair of white sunglasses is sitting on his desk.

So Ronan has a bottle of very old and very expensive wine that was not obtained through dream or legal methods, and he sits on the floor next to his bed while Chainsaw tries to eat the sunglasses. He hasn’t taken a drink of the wine yet.

“Can I come in?”

Ronan’s door isn’t closed. Gansey takes up less of the doorway than he usually does. “Yeah.”

Gansey sits down next to Ronan. Their knees are touching. “Is it too late in the evening to call Adam?”

The clock blinks seven fifty-three. A drop of sweat trickles down Ronan’s spine. “Fuck if I know. Never been good at keeping regular hours, have I?”

Gansey smiles. It tugs at something painful inside Ronan. He thinks of texts from Kavinsky, accusations that sounded more jealous and desperate than anything. “You’re not exactly a normal person, Ronan Lynch.”

Ronan considers this. He uncorks the bottle and tips it towards Gansey, not enough to spill, but enough for Gansey’s hand to come up automatically to catch it, fingers brushing Ronan’s. “Want some?”

They trade the bottle back and forth for a while. The wine tastes far better than any of the shitty alcohol Ronan’s ever dreamed up, far better than all the beers he drank with Kavinsky. Kavinsky. Kavinsky.

“Are you grieving him?”

Ronan thinks that he wants to lean into Gansey’s side more, have this conversation with his shoulder rather than his face. Instead, he turns, moves away from Gansey, looks him square in the eye. “Not him, so much. More of the feeling of him.”

Gansey’s eyes are a little sleepy, but he still focuses on Ronan. “Like, who are you gonna race now?”

“That, and,” Ronan swallows, “the feeling of not being the only one. The...I wasn’t the most dangerous thing in Henrietta.”

Gansey tilts his head. “I don’t think you’re dangerous.”

“Well, to you, I’m not.”

“Right.”

They drink more until there’s only about a fourth of the bottle left.

“I saw this thing the other day,” Gansey says, apropos of nothing. “Where you lie on the floor and cross your arms over your chest, and if someone pushes on your arms, it’s supposed to reveal your true laugh.”

“What the hell, Gansey,” Ronan says flatly.

“Do it,” Gansey says. He has a wry little twist to his mouth. Ronan makes an effort not to focus too much on it. “I want to hear you laugh.”

“I laugh.”

“Yeah, but not...not openly.” Gansey thinks for a moment. “Like how you were laughing when you dreamed me the Camaro.”

“You said something new for every night,” Ronan can’t help saying.

“I did not mean for you to wreck my fucking car and then replace it,” Gansey says, and his voice is still poised and fancy enough that the swear sounds out of place. Ronan starts laughing a little at that, because he’s more than tipsy and the air-conditioning is broken and he and Gansey are sitting on his bedroom floor, not thinking about ten white Mitsubishis. “See, like that! I miss your laugh.”

Ronan closes his eyes.

“What did you say I have to do?”

“Just lie down on the floor.” Gansey sounds far more excited about this than is really necessary, in Ronan’s opinion. “And put your arms over your chest.”

Ronan stares up at the ceiling. “Alright, now that I look like a corpse--”

“Shut up,” Gansey says, not unkindly. “I’m gonna--don’t freak out, I’m gonna sit on you, okay?”

Late evening sunlight is splashed all across them and Ronan’s shirt is sticking to his skin and Gansey swings one leg over Ronan and basically straddles him, one knee on either side of Ronan’s waist. This is--this is--

_ Don’t say Dick Gansey, man. Do not say it. He is never going to be with you, _ Kavinsky says in his head, over and over again, and there was something painful in his voice.

Ronan breathes in and stares up into Gansey’s face.

“I’ll just press down on your chest,” Gansey says, and he does, and a laugh bubbles unwillingly up from Ronan’s chest.

“Fuck, Gansey,” Ronan says, and then he laughs again, a real one. “Gansey--you--”

“That’s it,” Gansey says happily. “That’s your true laugh. I always wanted to hear it again.”

Ronan blinks up at Gansey, at his smile, at his eyes, lit by liquor but also joy. “Let me do yours.”

Gansey climbs off of Ronan, lies down next to him. For a split second Ronan wants to grab his hand and look up at the ceiling together. Wants to look at the clouds, the sunset, the stars in the sky. Wants. Wants. Wants.

Instead, he sits carefully on Gansey, and absolutely does not think about their waists being pressed right up against each other.

_ That’s not what Gansey is to me, _ he had said, and he wasn’t sure about the truth, but Ronan did not generally lie. Gansey was not the thing to him that Kavinsky thought he was. But Gansey was something to him, something larger and deeper than just friendship, and here Ronan is, straddling Gansey’s waist while Gansey looks up at him with his trusting, open face.

Ronan realizes finally that Gansey is wearing his glasses.

“Cross your arms,” he says unsteadily, and he can blame it on the wine if he needs to. Gansey crosses them, and Ronan presses, and Gansey laughs and it’s one of the best sounds Ronan has ever heard, pure and childlike and simple in its joy.

Gansey laughs more after Ronan lets up the pressure. “That felt odd,” he says, and Ronan’s chest feels like it’s constricting with how much he  _ feels _ for Gansey.

“I,” he starts.

Gansey looks up at him.

Ronan makes no move to get off of Gansey. His hands are hovering above Gansey’s chest. They’re both sweaty, from the July heat and the old building and the broken air-conditioning. There’s a bit of a challenge in Gansey’s gaze.

Their laughter feels like a physical thing to Ronan, something that’s still lingering in the air, and he takes a deep breath, pulls it into his lungs, and then before he can second-guess it, he leans down and kisses Gansey.

Gansey kisses back immediately, like that’s what he’s been waiting for. Like that’s why he came in the room and touched his knee to Ronan’s and drank the stolen, expensive wine, why he sat on Ronan and let Ronan sit on him, why he looked happier at Ronan’s laugh than he did at his own.

Ronan holds Gansey’s face in his hands and kisses him again, harder. Gansey’s arm is around his waist, the other one around the back of his neck, and Ronan could live in this moment, never wants to leave this space, this bedroom floor with the person he trusts more than just about anyone. He wants to press himself into Gansey, right under his skin, wants to become the single entity he sometimes feels they already are. Gansey’s mouth is hot and sweet and Ronan feels like he’s on fire.

“God, Ronan,” Gansey gasps, and the way he says the two words is the same.

They shift, Ronan’s knees still on the hard floor, Gansey’s back still flat, but Ronan’s pressing him into the floor, kissing him again and again and again. Gansey pulls Ronan down until finally his knees slide and he’s just laying on top of Gansey. Kavinsky’s words flash through his head, a thousand little jabs, and Ronan can’t bring himself to care that some of them were right, because Kavinsky got the feeling behind this completely wrong.

“I don’t want to stop,” Gansey says, and everything in Ronan tenses, waits for the  _ but _ . “But this would probably be more comfortable on a bed.”

Relief, and Ronan laughs, a giddy, cheerful sound. Gansey looks at him like he’s the entire world. “Mine or yours?”

“Yours is right there, and I have to say, I’m a bit impatient,” so Ronan grinds down on him, just because, and listens for the little hitch in Gansey’s breathing.

The sunlight hits him in the face when he stands, pulling Gansey up with him, still holding him close. He might never let go of Gansey again. Gansey kisses him there, standing up, in the sunlight, and now it doesn’t feel dirty. Now it feels right, less guilty, more allowed. He will stand up. He will kiss a boy in broad daylight (broad twilight) and he will press his hips to the boy’s and  _ it will be okay. _

Gansey pushes a little, probably just to see what Ronan will do, and Ronan lets himself fall, hits the bed, looks up at Gansey still standing with heavy eyes. Gansey swallows and Ronan watches the line of his throat. His glasses are askew, and he takes them off hesitantly, sets them on Ronan’s bedside table. Ronan tries to convey into a single look how badly he wants Gansey to get onto his bed.

He does, and he kisses Ronan first, and Ronan’s hands are in Gansey’s hair, touching the sweat on the back of his neck, and Gansey looks like a holy thing in the golden light.

Ronan thinks briefly about the things Kavinsky would say that they would do to each other, and then he stops, because none of those were coming from a place of love or softness, and everything about Gansey in this moment is soft and kind, overflowing with his feelings, feelings that Ronan can’t quite believe are directed at him.

“How long have you wanted to do this?” Ronan asks breathlessly between kisses. He hooks one of his legs over Gansey’s waist. Gansey shifts closer.

“Not sure,” Gansey says. His collar is slipping and Ronan is staring. “It’s just--it’s you, Ronan. I just want you.”

“Take your shirt off, then,” Ronan says, grabbing for the hem, and Gansey gives a little laugh and wriggles out of it. He’s still toned from his time on the rowing team, still tan from the Virginia sun, and Ronan runs his hands all over Gansey’s chest and back, covered lightly with sweat. Here is this boy, here you will touch him, and he will like it, and you will want more, and  _ it’ll be okay _ . 

“Yours too, I want to touch that tattoo,” Gansey says, and Ronan gets stuck halfway out of his shirt, so Gansey helps him pull it off, and then he’s got his hands on Ronan’s bare back, and Ronan aches.

Everything is slightly tilted from the alcohol, but Ronan didn’t drink so much that he won’t be able to remember every second of this. Gansey’s mouth on his neck. His hand down Gansey’s pants. Chest to chest. The look on Gansey’s face when he comes. The high sweeping through Ronan when he does, too.

Gansey rolls off of Ronan, breathing hard, and grabs his hand right after. Looks him in the eye. Kisses him again.

“This isn’t going to be just a one-time thing,” Gansey says, in that authoritative tone that people find it difficult to argue with. Ronan just kisses him back, sloppy. Moves down a bit to Gansey’s collarbone, licks the sweat off of it. Gansey sucks in a breath.

“I want you in a lot of ways,” Ronan mumbles against Gansey’s skin, and even though they both just came, they’re teenage boys, so Ronan’s dick is making a valiant effort to get hard again, and he can feel Gansey's against his thigh. “I don’t--I lo--I won’t be going anywhere.”

“Good,” Gansey says. Throws his head back when Ronan bites a little. “Fuck, that feels good, do it again--”

The air conditioning is broken in Monmouth Manufacturing. The sun goes down. Eventually they get their sticky clothes all the way off, and Gansey kisses Ronan until his mouth is sore. Ronan comes into Gansey’s fist and Gansey comes on the sheets and there’s sweat caught in all the creases of their bodies. Gansey holds Ronan like he loves him, and Ronan holds him right back. Cicadas sound all around the building and Ronan makes another mark on Gansey’s chest before he falls asleep on him, right above his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! comments and kudos are always appreciated <3
> 
> find me on tumblr @bestfluteninja


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